In relation to the question, it is the second phase, which is of most interest. Sherif argues that competition over real resources is necessary condition for inter-group conflict. Yet, the actual behaviours of the children in response to the imposed zero-sum goal are highly informative. By the end of phase one, general norms had been established amongst the two groups. The first, ‘the Rattlers’ had norms of ‘toughness’, ‘cursing’ and ‘bravery’. They appeared to have a strong group identity, expressed through them naming themselves, and making T-shirts with their group name and emblems on them. The second group, in contrast, had standardised behaviours such as homesickness, crying and swimming nude. They had not created an explicit group identity. Interestingly, once the two groups were placed in competition which each other, the social identities of the groups became much more salient and the boys actively seeked to differentiate themselves from the other group as much as possible, simultaneously, attributing negative characteristics to the opposing group, much in line with one of Sherif’s hypotheses:
‘In the course of such competitive action toward a goal available only to one group, unfavourable attitudes and images (stereotypes) of the out-group come into use and are standardised, placing the out-group at a definite social distance from the in-group.’
(Sherif, M. 1966. p.82)
Very quickly, the good sportsmanship displayed by the Eagles, soon vanished, and the boys quickly became two hostiles divisions, constantly rebuking and even physically attacking the other group. The judgements and perceptions of the two groups showed great evidence of in-group bias, and friendships became almost exclusively confined to members of their own group (Brown, 1995.p. 165). The boys despised each other greatly. Yet, it is here I argue there is a shift in the type of competition that the boys are engaged in. Sherif noted:
‘A great deal of time and energy within each group went into making plans and strategies to outwit and defeat the out-group, which now appeared to be the enemy.’
(Sherif, M. 1966.p.83)
It appears to me that that boys were no longer entirely concerned with whom would win the trophies, since it was quite blatantly the ‘rattlers’ who had dominated the competitions of tug-a-war, football and so on. The competition has shifted from the ‘real resources’ Sherif discussed to a more abstract level. The Eagles were evidently attempting to reinstate themselves as worthy opponents, perhaps in an attempt to raise the groups and individual self-esteem levels. Every time a siege on the out-groups cabins was successful, it could be argued the in-groups self-perception increased. This raises issue with the theory due to its ambiguity surrounding the actual basis for inter-group discrimination, is it necessary that all real conflicts are over such concrete things like political power, land or money? ‘Perhaps, instead [one] could derive from perceived conflicts of interest of some kind, or even, merely from a competition over some rather less tangible assets such as prestige, or ‘to be the winner’. (Brown, 1995.p169). This observation of Brown’s raises two issues. Firstly, Sherif is particularly vague concerning the notion of competition being based on criterion other than real resources, and so he does not explain all types of inter-group phenomena. Secondly, Brown discusses ‘perceived conflicts’. Could it possibly be true that inter-group conflict could be based on imaginary competition and distrust? This issue shall be further discussed later in the essay, although it is useful to bear in mind for the time being.
Thus, the summer camp studies provide very strong evidence for Realistic Conflict Theory (Sherif & Sherif, 1953; Sherif, White & Harvey, 1955; Sherif, White, Harvey, Hood & Sherif, 1961), through showing that ordinary children whose behaviour could be shown to change in a highly predictable manner, simply by altering the inter-group goal (i.e. Zero-sum goal changed for a super ordinate goal). Furthermore, their experimental design is particularly strong, due to the three phases system, which incorporated a triangulation of data collecting methods (observation of behaviour, questionnaires, microphones put in the dorms of the boys), and is generally particularly impressive. The Realistic provides a good explanation for many examples of prejudice and can account for the ebb and flow of prejudice over time or across different social contexts (Brown, 1995; p.168), quite unlike Adorno’s authoritarian personality, yet explicit conflicts of interest may not always be required for the instigation of in-group favouritism and competition. The major problem for Sherif, is the behaviour of the boys on their initial learning of the presence of the other group in the wood. Even before the experimenters had time to impose a zero-sum goal, the boys had already requested a competition of baseball against the out-group. Where did the premise for this request arise? We now turn to Tajfel’s Minimal Group Paradigm theory.
In stark contrast to Sherif, Tajfel claims that people will readily favour members of their own group as a mere consequence of categorisation. Thus, Tajfel argues that there is no need for competition, either over real or intangible goals for inter-group discrimination to occur. Through the conduction a various experiments, Tajfel Found support for his hypotheses (Tajfel, Flament, Billig & Bundy, 1971). Basically, he assigned schoolboys to one of two groups. Identities were kept anonymous, and individuals were asked to allocate sums of money to either an in-group member or an out group member, based on a series of matrices. What Tajfel was interested in was the various strategies utilised in the allocation of monies. The results were apparent. Although the children demonstrated some effort to allocate monies fairly, they showed a persistent tendency to allocate more money to members of their in-group as apposed to those in the out-group. And so,
‘The mere act of allocating people into arbitrary social categories is sufficient to elicit biased judgements and discriminatory behaviour.’
(Tajfel, 1982)
So, with regards to our question, considering the substantial amount of support for the Minimal Group Paradigm, it appears competition is not required for inter-group discrimination. It is in fact quite powerful that competition is indeed not a factor, since the consistent in-group bias may in fact be at a biological and cognitive level. It is an automatic cognitive process, which one cannot control.
It is Doise (1970) who in fact proposed the notion of categorization processes, namely, ‘Categorical Differentiation’. Doise argues that this is a fundamental cognitive process which exaggerates the real difference between two categories, resulting in judgmental biases. An experiment, which demonstrates this, is that of McGarty & Penny (1988), which focused on attitude statements. These statements were either categorized as having come from one of two sources, or not classified at all. The former were seen to be much more different from each other than the latter (Hewstone & Stroebe, 2001; p.497). Doise argues that if social categories are to be useful simplifying and ordering mechanisms, it is very important that they have the capacity to differentiate clearly between group and non-group members. Thus, the function of categorical differentiation is to sharpen the differences between the categories and blur the distinctions within them, solely to better organise and structure the mental and social world, simply because the mind does not have the capacity to take in all the activity and stimulus the world consists of. At this point, competition does not appear to have any impact on the potential for inter-group discrimination if it is to be constructed automatically, cognitively, yet I shall return to this shortly.
Thus, it is all very well to discuss important cognitive functions such as categorical differentiation and the minimal group paradigm, but these do not explain why negative discrimination occurs to the out group, and a positive bias and favouritism is found within the in-group:
‘The heightened solidarity and pride in the group will be reflected in overestimation of the achievements by fellow group members and lower estimates of the estimates of the achievements by members of the out group.’
(Sherif, 1953.p.90)
In response to this deficit, Tajfel developed his theory further in the form of the ‘Social Identity Theory’. Based on the fact that we are all members of several categories, we construct and define our identity through the membership or non-membership of various categories. Furthermore, it can be assumed (with Tajfel) that people would much rather have a positive self-concept than a negative one. Following on from the premise that we define ourselves in terms of the social categories to which we believe we are part of, it seems that we would only desire for those in-groups to be viewed positively also.
With this in mind, how, in fact, do we manage to come to such (positive) evaluations? Tajfel claims that we work toward the ‘establishment of Positive Distinctness,’ this being the social comparison (Festinger) of the worth of our own social group with other social categories. And, since it is our presumed need for a good or positive self-concept, it follows that there will be a bias in these comparisons to look for ways whereby the in-group can be distinguished approvingly from the out-group. However, a question begs to be asked: ‘how does the establishment of positive distinctiveness and social identity theory explain the persistent tendency for people to display inter-group discrimination?’
Personally, it is at this point I feel that the condition of competition again raises its head. Abrams & Hogg (1988) noted that people show inter-group discrimination in order to enhance their social identity. Furthermore, low self-esteem causes inter-group discrimination to in fact rise, in order to attain ‘normal’ levels of self-concept and esteem. Thus, I argue, that implicitly, if the self-esteem and self-concept theories hold true, that groups are constantly competing to either maintain high levels of self-concept, or to attempt to increase levels of self-esteem, even at the expense of the out group. There is some evidence to support the notion of self-esteem (or a deficit of it) to be the cause of discrimination. Caldini and Richardson (1980), found that college students who had been told that they had preformed poorly in a test of creativity rated their own university more highly and a rival university more negatively than did students who had been given positive feedback. This is very similar to the work Caldini conducted on the ‘Negative-State Relief Model’ of helping behaviour. Similarly, if an individual was in a temporarily state of guilt or low self-esteem, they were found to be more helpful, presumably to increase their self-esteem and personal image.
However, this leads onto a substantial issue. Can the social identity of a group be dependent on the individual self-concepts of its members? The group, Sherif argued, is more than the sum of its parts. Therefore, it could be concluded, that the behaviour and discrimination of social groups could be more closely related to in-group bias than just personal self-esteem. However, despite this potential shift in explanation, competition is still an important condition for inter-group discrimination. If we look at the various theories as to why there is such tremendous in-group favouritism, the importance of competition is still apparent. The processes, which I shall discuss, are based on the ‘inter-group schema’. Firstly, the discontinuity effect. Insko et al. (1987) found that in situations where either competition or cooperation is possible, people consistently behaviour more competitively in inter-group contexts than in interpersonal exchanges. But why is this? According to ‘schema-based distrust’, it is a
Learned belief for most individuals through their experience of inter-group relations, that such relations are competitive, and thus the out-group cannot be trusted and the in-groups interests must be protected. Therefore, such anticipated competition creates a self-fulfilling prophecy (Kelly & Stahelski, 1970); as so, the only method by which one can avoid loss is to be pre-emotively competitive. Even in the minimal group paradigm, which claims to not be competitive, we can see, through this explanation, the underlying competition and in-group bias. Furthermore, both Tajfel and Sherif acknowledged that the boys in their samples were naturally sporty, and since they have grown up in a culture which endorses competition through the education system,
on the sports pitch and in children’s games, it is highly feasible that a phenomena such as the schema-based distrust, supported by theories such as the universal stereotype (I.e. in-group all exhibit positive characteristics, whereas all out-groups are untrustworthy and demand suspicion), are in fact correct in their explanations of inter-group conflict.
So, I argue, competition is an integral condition for inter-group discrimination on the basis of what I have read. Tajfel’s minimal group paradigm can be seen to potentially have implicit competitive undertones, and although the Sherif experiments support my argument, I feel that competition is not always over real and tangible resources, but can be over the social identity of the group as a whole and how valued they feel in society or not.
However, is there perhaps a way by which we can look at inter-group discrimination from a different perspective other than that of competition or minimal group paradigms? Hovland and Sears (1940) found a negative correlation between value of cotton and the incidence of lynching of African-Americans by whites in the America South. What we can draw from this is that as crop price falls, frustration increases, instigating higher levels of aggression. Thus, the displacement of aggression from the source to a less and/or more accessible target frequently occurs. So could catharsis provide an additional catalyst for inter-group discrimination, depending upon power relations between the groups? Perhaps.
‘The broadening of the human bond is the prerequisite for morality in dealing with peoples outside the narrow in-group boundaries for a creation of a widening ‘we-ness’ and is the individual consciousness in keeping with inter-group systems free of tension and violence.’
Sherif, 1953.p.174
Bibliography
Brown, R.J. (1995) Prejudice: its social psychology. Oxford: Blackwell
Sherif,M. (1966) Group conflict and cooperation. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul
Tajfel, H. (1981). Human groups and social categories. Cambridge university press
Brewer, M.B. (2003) Intergroup relations (2nd edn.) Buckingham
Hewstone , M & Stroebe, W. (2001) Introduction to social psychology. Boston